A Penn State Abington professor felt compelled by recent events to go on a midair rant that landed her in handcuffs and raised eyebrows on the Montgomery County, Pennsylvania campus where she teaches.
Dr. Karen Bettez Halnon became unruly on an American Airlines flight headed from Managua, Nicaragua to Miami, Florida on Saturday, said officials.
"The United States has declared war on Venezuela! The United States has declared war on Venezuela!" The PSU professor continually screamed about midway through the 2-1/2-hour flight.
Back in Montgomery County Tuesday, Halnon said she used the plane as platform to express her displeasure over American policy toward the oil-rich South American country.
“It was a moment of conscience, it was the timing and I felt compelled to speak,” Halnon told NBC10.
Fellow passengers captured the associate professor of sociology’s tirade on cellphone video.
“I’m going to say my piece before I’m arrested,” Halnon said after being told by a flight attendant that police would be meeting the plane to arrest her. “They’re already saying they’re arresting me, so I’m going to tell you more!”
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Before landing – and being booked for disorderly conduct – the Willow Grove woman is seen on video lighting up a cigarette then trying to blame another passenger.
Halnon lit up the cigarette to pay homage to revolutionaries she admires.
“Most ‘revolutionarios’ that I respect, smoke – Fidel Castro...” she said. "That was more in jest, every good revolutionary smokes ... You have to have a sense of humor when you're in this kind of situation.”
Halnon said she felt compelled to speak out about what she calls an injustice of U.S. policy against Venezuela.
“This is a very, very disturbing situation where I believe it was so urgent that I had to speak out and speak out now,” she said.
Earlier this month, President Barack Obama signed an executive order imposing sanctions on Venezuelan officials and the Obama Administration called Venezuela’s recent actions an “extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” reported NBC News.
“It means they want to take the oil and, I think, more generally, it means they want to have a base for extracting the precious water resources in Latin America.”
Some passengers seemed amused by the rant while others seemed upset. “You’re a national security threat,” one passenger can be heard half-heartedly saying.
Blake Goodwin said he was sitting in the aisle seat next to the woman.
"That was the first time I was actually nervous for my safety because I was in close proximity to the woman," Goodwin told NBC Miami Monday. "As we were landing she was calling us fascist and capitalist."
On PSU’s suburban campus the news of the caught-on-camera rant was a hot topic.
“It’s kind of weird, no one really expected that,” said PSU Abington student Keenan Safadi.
Halnon has taught at PSU Abington since 1999 and earned the campus’ 2012 Diversity Award. Her PSU bio includes mention of her many publications including two books -- The Consumption of Inequality: Weapons of Mass Distraction and Webbing Vicissitudes of Forgiveness.
Neither Halnon nor PSU would share if she remains employed at the university.
“Penn State Abington is aware of Dr. Karen Halnon’s behavior this past weekend on a flight from Nicaragua and is looking into the matter,” said Chuck Marsh, director of university relations.
After landing, Halnon was taken to Miami's Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. She said the FBI questioned her and she felt mistreated.
"They made the room extremely, extremely cold, they chained me to what you might call a bed but it was just a metal, flat thing, and would not allow me to go to the bathroom," she said.
Halnon was released and flew back to Philadelphia on Monday without incident. She said it was worth it, and hinted that it may not be the last time she protests.
"I would do it again," she said. “I think people get concerned a lot when people speak out because people have been trained just to go along.”
